Man, I've started listening to 'normal' music since the start of this year. Beforehand I always listened to music from video games or just instrumentals in general. There was also some Judas Priest and stuff in there at some point. But after listening to what normal people enjoy I find that there's always this one bit that annoys me about music.

Why is it that in most songs that I personally like, there's always the boring part and you only really like the song towards the end? I mean the finale is the only good part of the song and you have to listen to the boring 2/3rds before you get to the good stuff. I spend most of my time listening to a song looking forward to the bit I want to hear. XD An example would be "Sultans of Swing". Not really a modern song but the points easy to identify in there. Dat guitar. ^^

I like video game music because it repeats itself at some point so you can hear some stuff a second or third time on the same track, and it is able to loop. That and you don't have to hear the singer breathe in. So forum, what do you dislike about music? (Im not hating on music.)

__________________
"Don't you have to be told to do things to be considered a slave?"

The explanation for your dislike is simple. We remember the last thing we hear or see better than we remember the things in the middle. So you are experiencing one of two things: you only remember the last part and that is why you enjoy it or they purposely make sure the last part is better so you will always remember that you like the song even if most of it sucks.

What I hate about modern music is that the lyrics make no sense at all. All they do now is throw random words and phrases together simply because they sound cool on the surface but when you actually pause to digest them you realize that the writer is an idiot and that anyone who actually subscribes to the situation or lifestyle the song promotes is an idiot.

I never really thought what makes me hate or like certain types of music... I mostly listen to rock/metal ranging from the 70s to today and soundtracks...

Edit: Actually, I think 'normal' music has been annoying me less recently than in the past. I guess I've gotten used to it and my brain filters songs I don't like as background noise.

Usually if I'm looking for new things to listen to I take a soundtrack that I liked from a movie or game and start looking into other works by the artists who did the soundtrack. For example, I found out about Zilch from the Heavy Metal 2000 soundtrack and I'd never heard of The Stooges before Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (Also there was a cover of one of their songs in Sucker Punch).

I don't think it's entirely fair to compare game soundtracks with radio music though. For me at least, game soundtracks are enhanced by how much I enjoy the game at that time. Take Max Payne for example, it had a great story, fun gameplay and amazing soundtrack, but had I heard the soundtrack before playing the game I would not have the same feeling of nostalgia when listening to it, which makes it even better.

Any kind of secondary context would make the music more memorable. Be it a game you were playing or a movie you were watching. Even watching a music video of the song affects your perception and how much you remember it because it adds more information to your brain and creates more connections between the song and other memories and thought processes.

What annoys me most with modern stuff is the styfilling genric nature of it, the loudness war and the over use of auto-tune.

There's a quote I found on a music forum along the lines of "modern technology allows anyone to generate music...and they usually do".

BR
JN

+1 Skrillex sucks. This dubstep stuff reminds me ALOT of the graphics allure push in video games. It's all just show and pretty lights but there is this massive art vacuum in it.
Just...nothingness. oooh purty....

The work of Pretty Lights (which is Drum and Bass, not dubstep) is great but it gets real old real quick for me. Lots of the same tricks. Like watching someone do kickflips all the time, it gets boring.
I do enjoy the art of Moya. It's all instrument, not reused songs someone else made like Pretty Lights.

I haven't listened to much pop other than the stuff I'm forced to like at grocery stores and junk, but it feels like the artist "I Blame Coco" puts alot of thought and emotion into the music and has alot of serious things to say which i think is really cool.

If anything, that is what I feel like music in general needs. Less Junk. More Real.
Hell, that can more easily apply to life in general.

__________________The Most IMPORTANT Video You'll Ever See
The body a mountain, the mind a river, what you think of changes how you think of what you think of.
Beware of those who care or know not of happiness. Blackhole singularity.

For some reason I like long songs that build up to a climax, back down and start up again. A lot of Opeth stuff, earlier Metallica, Iron Maiden, Dream Theater, Porcupine Tree, and even Trivium's Shogun all have this. Though if a song is just trudging along for 10 minutes like Dream Theater songs sometimes do, I get bored easily. Otherwise I'm just a sucker for bands that master their instruments and know how to make good songs with it, so not like Megadeth, which is just speed-wank.

__________________"Is there any better Gerüstbaufirmenvorarbeiterschlüsselanhängerfarbenwasserlöslichkeitskontrollchemiker than discy? No!" -Shrinker
[22:30] Fiendian: Discy, Finzy and Louva shall merge into a superentity known as the Lickyfonz.
"Can we just move Discy's posts to the HOF automatically already? :P" -Jetty

Awesome, so I'm not the only one who likes game/ambient/movie soundtracks better, and precisely for the same reasons also. Are you my evil twin on the other side of the world Pan?

I do listen to some bands like Amorphis who have a bit more original style & lyrics (mythology inspired etc) though, but for the most part my "normal" music taste is pretty random. Gangsta rap/hiphop and over-the-top trance is what I hate most, there's just nothing to relate to in them for me anyways, and they're wayy too random also.

I listen to game/movie/etc OSTs and 'normal' music as well. There are some songs, which have that part which kicks ass but the rest of the song is decent or boring like Pan said, but there aren't much of them in my opinion.

I don't really like hiphop (only very few songs that I actually like), but I just hate the kind of rap that just takes the music from another artist and "ruins" by singing their own crap over the original. One example is Jennifer Lopez's song that was released this year. I went rage when I heard it from the radio and rageswitched the channel. I liked the original Lambada and now some bitch is getting more fame by singing her own shit there. BULLSHIT says I

__________________
"You are all my prisoners" - Louva-Deus
Follow the leader, let the blind lead the blind

Metal inflates my head. I listen Jazz, Blues and some other similar genres. Those musics on radio are nothing else than random rumble to me. I can not feel the music inside them, all I hear is a 3 seconds length looping rhythm and someone and/or something randomly grunts.

There are only a few things that bug me about music, but they wipe out pretty much the majority of music out there:

1. Annoying singer - I'm very picky about singers. I can only think of 3 that I actually enjoy, and I didn't like 2 of them until I got used to them.
2. Formulaic structure and/or a chorus that repeats way too many times. I don't know how they do it, but a lot of the 3 minute pop songs out there manage to make me tired of the song (and chorus) before it ends. It's only 3 minutes long -- it's not necessary to repeat the chorus for half of the song. Seriously.

I get around these problems by listening to mainly progressive rock/metal that have more elaborate song structures (and much longer songs in general), or instrumentals of various genres.

Lyrics don't usually bother me, but there are some extreme cases that have completely put me off. There was one song that I sounded beautiful, but when I actually listened to the lyrics, I realized it was about a guy having sex with a dead girl's body. Seriously, WTF? How can I listen to that?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Discy

For some reason I like long songs that build up to a climax, back down and start up again. A lot of Opeth stuff, earlier Metallica, Iron Maiden, Dream Theater, Porcupine Tree, and even Trivium's Shogun all have this. Though if a song is just trudging along for 10 minutes like Dream Theater songs sometimes do, I get bored easily. Otherwise I'm just a sucker for bands that master their instruments and know how to make good songs with it, so not like Megadeth, which is just speed-wank.

Dream Theater is one of my favorite bands. I love their 10 minute long instrumental breaks.

There are only a few things that bug me about music, but they wipe out pretty much the majority of music out there:

1. Annoying singer - I'm very picky about singers. I can only think of 3 that I actually enjoy, and I didn't like 2 of them until I got used to them.
2. Formulaic structure and/or a chorus that repeats way too many times. I don't know how they do it, but a lot of the 3 minute pop songs out there manage to make me tired of the song (and chorus) before it ends. It's only 3 minutes long -- it's not necessary to repeat the chorus for half of the song. Seriously.

Same. There's nothing more boring than the standard verse-bridge-chorus structure, unless there's a seriously sexy hook to it that I can stand it for a little while. Same goes for extremely short songs, they're over before you even realize it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by viper45

Lyrics don't usually bother me, but there are some extreme cases that have completely put me off. There was one song that I thought sounded beautiful, until I actually listened to the lyrics and realized it was about a guy having sex with a dead girl's body. Seriously, WTF? How can I listen to that?

Edit: The necrophilia song was by Porcupine Tree.

Wait, which song is that? Strip the Soul is also pretty disturbing, about domestic abuse and murder. Actually, the whole In Absentia album has a pretty eerie vibe.

Quote:

Originally Posted by viper45

Dream Theater is one of my favorite bands. I love their 10 minute long instrumental breaks.

Don't get me wrong, I love the instrumental jams. I love Metropolis, The Glass Prison, Honor Thy Father, and Trial of Tears. But some songs have parts that just feel like filler. Like some parts of In the Name of God, Sacrificed Sons, In the Presence of Enemies and A Nightmare to Remember.

Have you heard the Falling into Infinity demos, the way they were before executive meddling? Some parts had great instrumental passages, especially Burning My Soul.

__________________"Is there any better Gerüstbaufirmenvorarbeiterschlüsselanhängerfarbenwasserlöslichkeitskontrollchemiker than discy? No!" -Shrinker
[22:30] Fiendian: Discy, Finzy and Louva shall merge into a superentity known as the Lickyfonz.
"Can we just move Discy's posts to the HOF automatically already? :P" -Jetty

don't worry you guys aren't alone! Athough I do listen to my country's own music, I am not really a fan of american music beyond some rock bands like ShineDown. Most of the time I am either listening to videogame music or instrumentals like this :YouTube Video: Ewan Dobson-Time 2

Wait, which song is that? Strip the Soul is also pretty disturbing, about domestic abuse and murder. Actually, the whole In Absentia album has a pretty eerie vibe.

It's Lips of Ashes, from In Absentia. It could be that there are multiple interpretations of it, and maybe the necrophilia one is wrong. From what I understand though, In Absentia focuses on a character (or characters) who are completely demented - i.e. the first song was about rape, if I remember right.

Quote:

Don't get me wrong, I love the instrumental jams. I love Metropolis, The Glass Prison, Honor Thy Father, and Trial of Tears. But some songs have parts that just feel like filler. Like some parts of In the Name of God, Sacrificed Sons, In the Presence of Enemies and A Nightmare to Remember.

Have you heard the Falling into Infinity demos, the way they were before executive meddling? Some parts had great instrumental passages, especially Burning My Soul.

First off, I never really expected to find another Dream Theater fan on these forums, so that's kind of awesome. I unfortunately haven't heard their FII demos, but I've always wanted to. I'm going to have to check it out. I have heard Raise the Knife off of the Score DVD though, and couldn't believe it was cut. It definitely should have been on the final album.

I hate anything from the Black Eyed Peas or Lil' Wayne.
Exception being "Pump It" as they simply stole Misirlou, though I like the original far better.

I tend to like either fast songs, or dark/eerie slow songs. My favorite songs tend to be rock and industrial metal. I love Neue Deutsche Harte. They tend to have very meaningful lyrics, good tempos, and atmospheric tones. Particularly Eisbrecher and Rammstein.
I also love classic metal like Judas Priest.
Newer hard rock/metal that strikes my fancy includes Disturbed, Turmion Katilot, Three Days Grace, Skillet, etc.

I hate German language bands. There is something about that language that sounds awful when sung.

I can't stand the guitar sound or vocal stylings of punk. There is something about punk that makes me want to obliterate it from the planet (I hate their self destructive attitude towards their industry too, "You can't be punk if you become popular!").

Sludge rock bores me. And it really bothers me when people try to pass it off as metal. It's not nearly aggressive enough.

And black metal has a lot of bands that all have terrible everything that all blurs together into one big pile of stink...

#1 Long and detailed musical phrases?... Wait.. is that referring to lyrics or some musical notion that I don't quite understand yet?... Either way, it sounds good!

#2 Multi-pitch changes in a song's hook?... I don't really have any notion of what a song's hook is, but again, multi-pitch changes sound good.

#3 Male Vocalists... Eh... I guess I do listen to mostly bands that feature male singers, but on the other hand I love Caro Emerald (since recently) and... Hmm... And that's about it? Wait, really? I don't listen to any lady-singer bands? Odd...

#4 Higher male voices! **** yea! Rob Halford is the man! ...and The Castaway's Liar Liar is awesome heh... (also very recently I've found Tiny Tim's 'Living in the sunlight' terribly addictive due to his very unusual voice in it...)

Edit:

@TGP Punk? Can't say I have... any opinion of it? Wait... The Stooges are considered punk rock right? I like them quite a lot, but other than that, total indifference. Never really liked the vocals in black metal and other such things...

A long time ago I had a thread on graveyard of the gods I still think accurately summarizes my biggest pet peaves.

Pretension wangst:
I think this could be summed up by listening to the song "Only God Knows Why" by Kid Rock, but I'll explain it anyways.
Pretension wangst is when someone wants to make a deep enthralling song when they aren't really deep and enthralling. They do this and as they are sitting there thinking they're gonna be the next big philosopher their big defining feature of the song is "life sucks". It irritates me to no end and only irritates me more when the song turns out to be more shallow and uninteresting than their songs about chicks and fancy cars.

Treating love as cheap stock content:
Almost everyone has loved and lost so everyone can relate if you pump out a superficial love song. Right?
Well there's a tiny problem with that. Every poet with some sappy pubescent idealized outlook on relationships have done that since the beginning of human language. That horse has been beaten. That horse has been dead since before Çatalhöyük, Jericho and Eridu. We have a library of silly love songs already, so unless you have something unique shut up. And it doesn't even have to be unique, just slightly less dead. I liked the song "Bizarre Love Triangle" by New Order, so as far as that's concerned even the person writing the criticism isn't hard to please in this respect. So if you're gonna beat that pile of dust that used to be a horse atleast do something interesting with it. Like whirl it up into a tornado and beat the air.

Cookie Monster Vocals:
In metal the vocals are strange. And there's nothing wrong with the institution of growling, screeching, croaking or whatever the kids do now days. But originally (iirc) it was used theatrically in parts of the song, NOT THE WHOLE THING.* Atleast it isn't so bad it will obliterate good music. But it really lowers the quality of good metal bands when they can't use anything else but growling or whatever. That's why I like power metal. It might be boring fantasy crap most of the time but not every track sounds like it's being sung by fakesagan** with his microphone plugged into a very cheap amp.

* Not so sure about this anymore
** This is a reference to a youtuber who is under a different name now. It's also not the best analogy so little was lost.

The 12 TET:
This is the least horrible of the four horsemen. But it's also the most insidious because it's so big it blots out the sun. Considering microtonal and atonal music a novelty or a niche interest is a horror that has been going on so long (since, admittedly, before the 12 TET even existed*) that noone knows it's wrong. There are infinity of notes at your disposal between B and C and most people can't wrap their mind around it. That's why I want an Oud.
Oh and this last one doesn't mean I don't listen to music with standard notation. Only that the standard notation is so huge that outside of middle eastern music you're looked at liking that "weird music".

*The 12 TET before the 12 TET was called the Pythagorean scale. It's kind of what the 12 TET is based on. I don't remember anything about it though.

__________________
Marmalade.... sunny days.... Drugs make me wanna next to you

he unobserved state is a fog of probabilities, a window of and for error. The watcher observes, the fog collapses, an event resolves. A theory becomes a fact... What is the truth? Tell me, if you know. And I will not believe you. Things are never what they seem. Clean gloves hide dirty hands - and mine are dirtier than most... Without truth, there can be no justice.

I can tolerate any music as long as it is the result of a musician creating music with passion, and even then, there's exceptions *cough* SNSD *cough*. There's a lot of music I don't like, but anything worthy of being called art has my respect, plus more *cough*.

I saw something related to SNSD in one of MaximusBlack's videos (Starcraft 2 caster / does other let's plays and stuff on youtube). Apparently it stood for something like "Supper Naughty Sexy Dude" (it was something that looked like some fan-art and it was signed SNSD?), I still don't really have any idea what it's supposed to be and I don't really care enough to google it.